Tom Cruise, Bryan Singer and Christopher McQuarrie discuss 'Valkyrie'

That would be Suri Cruise and her dad, Tom, who famously wears a black pirate-esque patch in his new film, "Valkyrie," a World War II thriller about a plot to assassinate Hitler that opened on Christmas. Cruise plays the coup's real life ringleader, the aristocratic Col. Claus von Stauffenberg. Suri, often touted as the most powerful tot on the planet, would often walk to her dad as he was ready to leave the makeup trailer, and "she would take my eye patch off," says Cruise with his trademark laugh. "The girls in the makeup trailer got her a stuffed bear with a patch on it so that she would play with that and start to feel very comfortable."

Suri wasn't the only one disconcerted by the eye patch. The blogosphere went nuts -- not in a good way -- when images of Cruise in his character's Nazi gear first appeared online, but perhaps that's the fate of being Tom Cruise in the last few years. Every action seems to provoke an unanticipated reaction. Holed up in the Beverly Hills Hotel last week, Cruise is in the middle of the "Valkyrie" press tour, which could also be dubbed the "apology" tour, an elaborate jaunt with stops at some of the media outlets ("Today" show, anyone?) that contributed to his famed couch-jumping, Scientology-spouting, psychiatry-bashing media implosion of 2005.

In a green sweater and jeans, the 46-year-old Cruise is thin, friendly and solicitous, with practically the only visible sign of age being the little laugh lines around his eyes. He also appears relaxed -- one suspects that was helped in part by the presence of his wingmen, director Bryan Singer and Singer's childhood friend, Academy Award-winning screenwriter Christopher McQuarrie. Unlike many of his peers in stardom, Cruise does not seem to travel with a posse of guy pals, an entourage of buddies from before fame; one can almost imagine him living in a hermetically sealed bubble with wife Katie Holmes, his children Suri, Bella and Connor, his sisters and various Scientologists. But that apparently is not the case.

When Cruise is asked if he feels misunderstood, Singer and McQuarrie jump in with the passion of longtime homeboys (well, longtime homies who happen to be intellectual film geeks from Princeton, N.J.). "He's totally misunderstood. Tom, you need to let us talk about you," says Singer, passionately, as Cruise looks on vaguely embarrassed. Singer describes the time they all spent with Tom and his family, he and McQuarrie's circle of family and friends in Germany, and in the desert (where they shot a battle sequence).